NHS hospitals have changed since the days of severe matrons and strict
visiting hours. For a start, they're swarming with people

It comes to us all. Every one of us. No exceptions. At some stage in your life, you will become more acquainted with hospitals. It’s a testament to the Queen’s fortitude that, until Sunday, she hadn’t been admitted to hospital for 10 years.

Because as you get older, hospitals become a matter of routine. I’ve got used to it, and by now I almost enjoy the rituals.

Life’s trajectory starts with a burst of hospital mayhem, groaning and squealing, the strange feel of air and woolly blankets. Then come years when you hardly step inside except perhaps to the bedside of an ailing ancient. And how strange it all seems: the smells, medical and disinfectant, the uniforms, the wan curtains, various beds trundling by. Quite forbidding. That will change.

It’s one of the miracles of our age that, on the whole, we don’t need to go to hospitals at all in our middle years. We stay fitter longer. But come your fifth decade and you’ll be signing up for tests of various sorts. Now’s the time to get the hang of the type of place it is and its attendant routines.

Most hospitals will probably charge you to use the car park and there’s no knowing how long you’ll be. So public transport’s better. You’ll arrive frazzled.

National Health hospitals have changed since the days of severe matrons and strict visiting hours. For a start, they’re swarming with people: the arrival areas have become shopping malls gushing with flowers and magazines and manned by cheery volunteers. There’s usually a gaudy display cabinet selling the most unhealthy drinks on the planet. (Shouldn’t they be banned?) There’s usually a cafeteria that offers reasonable snacks and more cheery volunteers. Don’t, in the euphoria of chocolate brownies and cafe latté, forget you’ve come for medical attention.

At the ground floor reception desk, there will be an abundance of paperwork and important numbers. Do not neglect your National Health number. Without it, you don’t exist. You will be directed to places defined by their medical speciality, usually ending in –ology, and join the throng of other people in the corridors and on the stairs, as well as those who are visiting and those who are just plain lost. The place has the air of a busy city bus terminal.

The stream of humanity thins a little but not much as you reach your destination. More paper exchanges follow and the invitation to sit and wait. (This is where the car park expenses can run high.)

Sometimes there’s a gadget on the wall that dispenses numbers indicating your place in the queue, like the deli counter in a supermarket. Remember to look for this because if you don’t, no one will tell you and you’ll simply hang about longer. Now’s the time when the Kindle comes into its own, but nothing too serious or you’ll miss your turn.

Eventually, you reach the blessed sanctuary of the closed room and the medical expert. The chances are you won’t have met them before, so there may be more paperwork. You may often in the course of a visit have to recite your details several times. It helps to clarify things in your own mind, as well as making you wonder whether your visit is really worth the hassle.

But of course it is. Because the advice and treatment you get is likely to be of the very best. I have, in my time, been along for audiology, physiology, gastrology, and colonoscopy. I have had breast screening, biopsies, and blood tests. National Health medical staff these days take the trouble to explain what might be wrong, set out what can be done and ask whether there’s more you’d like to know. I know that, as the years go by, the chances are I’ll be back again and again. It’s inevitable. You might almost say its part of life. But of course it’s part of the other thing as well.